Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read the arc of The Secrets Next Door. The title and cover drew me in and then the premise sealed the deal. The story follows twins Tabitha and Talia. They were always inseparable and were each others best friends. they do everything together. They even opens a business together and live next door to each other with their families. When a new neighbor moves in next door, curiosity gets the better of Tabitha and she wants to know more. Talia isn’t happy about this new “friendship” and as tensions rise and secrets bubble to the surface, lots of drama ensues. This was a bit slower than what I like, but I’m glad I kept with it as the ending was a shocker.

The Secrets Next Door
by Sally Royer-Derr
Pub Date: 04 Mar 2024

The Secrets Next Door is a fast-paced, can't-put-down psychological thriller. The story alternates mainly between the twins, Tabitha and Talia who live next door to each other. For one twin, all she wants is to have her sister as her bff and a financially stable marriage. However, for the other twin, she wants freedom from her relationship with her sister and an emotionally stable marriage.

This was a fast paced novel, with a few unexpected but interesting twists and turns. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!

Many thanks to #TheSecretsNextDoor #NetGalley and #StormPublishing for providing me with an E-ARC of this book.

I was intrigued by the book's premise and immediately started reading it. The story had everything I wanted - mystery, suspense, and revenge. The pacing felt just right, with plenty of tension building up throughout the plot, hard to put down.

The book revolves around the lives of two twin siblings who are married and own a business together. They've always been inseparable and live next door to each other, until a new neighbor moves in. This neighbor is a mystery writer who fits the stereotype perfectly, and her arrival causes the twins to become suspicious.

As the plot unfolds, the twins start to hatch conspiracies and spy on their neighbor, trying to find out what she's up to. The potential of the setup was great, but the character development and writing flow needed improvement. Sharp abrupts between chapters were also noticeable.

If the author had paid more attention to detail and made the characters more realistic, I would have given the book a 4-star rating.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for the eARC.

The Secrets Next Door
by Sally Royer-Derr
Pub Date: March 4, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
An absolutely gripping and twisty psychological thriller that will have you questioning everything in a race to the jaw-dropping ending. The perfect read for fans of The Perfect Marriage, The Housemaid and Nicola Sanders.
The secrets next door follow the lives of two grown up twins who are both married with children, who refused to separate as they grew in life and as a result live next door to each other and own a business together.

Everything is perfect until a new neighbour moves in next door. A mystery writer who lives up to the stereotype and causes the twins to be consumed by suspicion and paranoia, resulting in endless conspiracies and attempts at spying to find out answers.

I would put this in the suburbia domestic suspense genre category, the focus is more on secrets and lies and a few surprise twists. New author for me. It was just ok.
3 stars

"It's not breaking in if you have a key."

Well...let's just say some can justify just about anything in The Secrets Next Door by the entertaining mystery suspense author Sally Royer Derr.

Twins Talia and Tabitha are living the envious suburban life next door to each other. Married to successful men, they own a profitable bakery and all is just perfect. Or so it seems until mystery writer Anne moves next door to Talia.

Talia is anxious to have a new friend besides her twin and there's something familiar and comfortable about Anne. But Tabitha doesn't like to share what's hers and Talia is hers. Soon Talia is doubting everything and everyone as Anne and Tabitha battle to reveal each other's secrets.

I have to give props to the narrator Patricia Rodríguez for finding that fine line between comedy and drama with this murderous mystery. This author had me laughing at the antics of these sisters in one chapter and gasping from surprise in the next as I read and listened to this mash up of TV's Desperate Housewives and Sally Hepworth 's The Good Sister.

Be prepared for a few improbable but fun twists, too much sharing between sisters, some shocking reveals (but not about husbands Zach and Grant...saw that right away) and the consequences of your neighbor's secrets leading to your own exposure when you discover The Secrets Next Door.

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Talia and Tabitha are twin sisters who live next to each other with their husbands. A new neighbor moves in next door. The sisters immediately become suspicious of Anne, the new neighbor. What happens next is drama on top of drama, with conspiracy theories thrown in. This story is told from the alternating POVs of Talia and Tabitha.

I enjoyed this book, but it was a very slow burn. Extremely slow. Nothing happened until about the 80% mark. I consider this more of a domestic drama book less of a thriller. This book also didn’t have much background knowledge provided until the flashbacks at the end. This book could’ve benefitted from having flashback chapters throughout, instead of just at the end. The characters also lacked depth in my opinion. There could’ve been more depth given to the husbands. It felt like they were just placeholders throughout the story.

The last 20% of the book was very gripping. I was all in wanting to know what happened. Overall, an enjoyable domestic suspense, even though it was slow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for an ARC. MY thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed this book and did not see the ending coming. It's a story about twins, Talia and Tabitha, who live next door to each other and their new neighbour, Anne, an author. There’s lots of twists and turns and feelings that I wasn’t quite sure about. The ending snuck up on me and boy was it a doozy! This is a thriller with a surprising ending. Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for my honest review.

When Anne moves into the house next door, the twins begin to wonder who their new neighbor is. From this town that seems perfect, nothing ever goes wrong, (and here is where the Mayberry affect is turned off). From the start, there is something odd about the neighbor that Tabitha cannot stand. Talia is not sure why her sister is so against the new neighbor, but she is drawn to her, wanting to be friends.
As the mystery deepens, and Zach, Talia's husband becomes more moody, she begins to wonder what is really happening. When Grant, Tabitha's husband is killed, the mystery deepens even more. Who would want to kill Grant? Is the new neighbor behind it? What are Zach and Tabitha hiding?
Talia is not sure, but she is determined to figure out what is going on, and what secrets her sister is holding.

Wow! I enjoyed this read. I will admit, the first few chapters took me a bit to get fully invested, but once the book kicked off, I could not put it down. Highly, highly recommend this to suspense lovers! I started to wonder about the twist that was coming, and almost had it figured out, but it was better than I thought. Really enjoyed it, and look forward to more from this author.

The very beginning it was slightly hard to tell the difference between Talia and Tabitha apart since they are twins and the names are slightly similar, but once I figured them out it was hard to mix them up. I did not like Tabitha at all, which I think is the point, but as a character she was flushed out so well, and was such a believable character right from the beginning. Since we have both Tabitha and Talia's points of view we can see the inner struggles Tabitha is struggling with which just adds more to her character development.

I loved the different points of view that this book had. It has Tabitha and Talia and then towards the end we even get Anne's point of view. This added so much more to the story as the plot is throwing the reader in so many different ways. I was always on Talia's side (seems to be a theme in the book haha), but I could never tell if she was doing the right thing, adding to the suspense of what was going to happen.

There is a lot of build to the main turning of the plot, since that happens around 40% of the book. Even though the plot doesn't pick up until that point, the plot was not lacking at all before that. It was still giving me enough mystery and intrigue from the beginning that I was flying through the book and then once I hit 40% I went into lightening speed reading it.

Also, the prologue of this book really yanked me in. I wasn't sure until the end how it was going to tie into the book. I actually kind of forgot about the prologue until it came back up.

All the twists really added up to a great book where I did not guess the ending at all. I thoroughly enjoyed this whole book, and it is probably one of my favorite books of this year so far! I read this in one day, and do not regret it at all!

I wanted to like this story so much. I kept turning the page and waiting for that thriller vibe. I DNF'd this book at 36% A thriller not picking up at 36%? Wow, so bored of Talia and Tabitha's story okay they are twins which I love. Work together in a bakery which is fun however their relationship was just odd in so many ways. Did I mention they live right next door to one another? They are married and have real-world happenings and I was so bored. This story felt so misleading in every way! We hardly got snippets of this neighbor so much of it was Talia and her paranoia on multiple things. I liked the mystery of Talia and Tabitha's backstory.

We see the new neighbor move in fairly soon and with instant paranoia. Talia bored somehow working a full time job is constantly spying on her neighbor. Right when I thought this story would pick up it hiccups and totally pivots.

This story turns into a family drama between Tabitha and her husband...I would love for a story to not a have a cheating plot. I understand that this plays into characters and the storyline but to have it on EVERY page. All focus went to this subject instead of the real (imo) mystery. I don't care about a adulterer mystery/thriller. I wasn't invested enough in these characters or the 'thriller/mystery of the husband/neighbor/etc). I have to give 1 star only to submit.

Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for this digital read.

Talia and Tabitha are twin sisters who live next to each other with their husbands. A new neighbor moves in next door. The sisters immediately become suspicious of Anne, the new neighbor. What happens next is drama on top of drama, with conspiracy theories thrown in. This story is told from the alternating POVs of Talia and Tabitha.

I enjoyed this book, but it was a very slow burn. Extremely slow. Nothing happened until about the 80% mark. I consider this more of a domestic drama book less of a thriller. This book also didn’t have much background knowledge provided until the flashbacks at the end. This book could’ve benefitted from having flashback chapters throughout, instead of just at the end. The characters also lacked depth in my opinion. There could’ve been more depth given to the husbands. It felt like they were just placeholders throughout the story.

The last 20% of the book was very gripping. I was all in wanting to know what happened. Overall, an enjoyable domestic suspense, even though it was slow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for an ARC. MY thoughts are my own.

3.5⭐
Genre ~ domestic drama
Setting ~ New York
Publication date ~ March 4, 2024
Est page Count ~ 248 (p+ 48 chapters)
Audio length ~ 7 hours and 39 minutes
Narrator ~ Patricia Rodriguez
POV ~ mostly dual 1st with an extra pov at the end, present tense
Featuring ~ twins in their 30's, secrets (duh), infidelity, revenge

Talia & Tabitha are twins who live next door to each other with their spouses, Zach & Grant. They even own a bakery business together. That's a lot of time to be spending together, but that's just the only child introvert in me talking.

Told in the present tense mostly as inner thoughts. This is fine up to a point, but then the narrator becomes quite unreliable. And one character has insomnia, so that heightens the unreliableness. I do enjoy an unreliable narrator, but in turn it made the characters very unlikable. In fact I can't think of one character that I did like, oh wait maybe the part time worker at the bakery who we hear from on only a few pages. Since there is a fair amount of repetition, due to each twin telling us how they are better than the other, it slows down the pace. I did quite enjoy the whole revenge plot and I think that played out nicely.

Overall, a decent domestic drama with a little bit of mystery. I was quite pleased with the ending.

Narration notes:
I did not listen to this one, but am just giving the info above for reference, however I do think at least 2 narrators would have been beneficial since I have a feeling the voices might not have differed much.

The Secrets Next Door by Sally Royer-Derr is a thriller that involves twin sisters living with their husbands next to each other in an affluent small town neighbourhood. Talia and Tabitha own a bakery which churns out specialty cakes and cupcakes (I love food descriptions in books!). Ever since they were small their personalities were polar opposites but they had each other's backs. A mystery author moves in next door which raises all sorts of questions. The sisters feel something is amiss so they start snooping.
But their personal lives start to unravel. So do secrets.

The premise sounded so promising but didn't deliver as was my hope. The characters are detestable (which can be a good thing but didn't work here, sadly) and many parts of the story are unconvincing and anticlimactic. Though the vision is excellent, the delivery is off. The writing style is over the top with its multitudinous clothing and other superfluous details. I kept waiting for the suspense and tension which never came.

I so badly wanted to love this book! The blurb sounded very appealing.

My sincere thank you to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this novel.

Thoroughly enjoyed "The Secrets Next Door" with a brilliant idea for a plot. I did not envisage the twists and turns so was pleasantly surprised. Hoping for a sequel as I am sure there is potential for one but look forward to reading more books from Sally Royer-Derr in the future. Thanks to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

Love the cover of this book!

As a Nana to twins I really wanted to read this book! I found some aspects witht he multiple POV to distinguish between what twin I was reading.

The plot was ok but with the confusion of whose POV it was I did lose interest because of that. I did finish but was ok.

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review

I would put this in the suburbia domestic suspense genre category, the focus is more on secrets and lies and a few surprise twists. I did however figure out most of the twists early. Descriptions were also so lengthy and happened so often that I found myself getting distracted from the plot.

Thank you for this ARC!

How well do I know my neighbors? I will be looking at them differently from now on, that's for sure. A gripping psychological thriller is a great description. A new to me author who knew how to keep readers hooked. This is one I'll be thinking about for a long time.

I found this book quite slow to begin with, so it was hard for me to get into it at first, but when I actually got into the more suspense it was really enjoyable , I predicted quite a few things towards the middle of the book but had a few surprises aswell! I rated a 3.5 overall for the prediction and a slow burn to start with

Fantastic fast paced thriller from Sally! I was immediately drawn into the twins stories and it kept me guessing til the end. If you are looking for the next book you can’t put down, start reading The Secrets Next Door! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #StormPublishing for the book #TheSecretsNextDoor by #SallyRoyerDerr. This book is incredible brim the betrayal, murder and revenge. I love the way the story played out and the incredible plot twist. Highly recommend.